End of life: Olivier Veran promises “significant progress by the end of September”

Emmanuel Macron declared it “the end of summer.” The end-of-life bill should be subject to “significant progress by the end of September,” government spokesman Olivier Veran assured on Wednesday. “According to the information I have, there will be significant progress by the end of September,” he said during the Council of Ministers report. He clarified that he “does not have a detailed agenda yet.”

Refuting any delay associated with Pope Francis’ visit to Marseille on September 22 and 23, he assured that “the presentation of the text is being adapted to the finalization of elements of the text.” Olivier Veran recalled that this is “a very big job” that requires “serious consultations.” “A bill like this has such an impact that it will take weeks to get through, we shouldn’t start a bad fight,” he commented.

Emmanuel Macron is ‘reserved’ on the issue

Announced by the head of state towards the end of the summer when he received 150 members of a citizens’ assembly on end of life in early April, the text “is in the process of being written”, Mi-Jul reported. Agnès Firmin Le Baudeau, Minister Delegate in charge of the territorial organization and the health profession that is leading the case. The latter resumed consultations with carers’ representatives and parliamentarians last week.

According to a government source, “we are at the development stage, looking for a word that does not fit and that no one has seen,” but the bill will be submitted to the president “by the end of September.” However, this does not foreshadow immediate submission to the Council of Ministers. The minister, for his part, said that, in his opinion, “the president was a little restrained” on this very sensitive issue. “When he has doubts about something, he waits as late as possible to make a decision,” he emphasizes.

Among the issues that remain to be resolved is the integration of this bill with the ten-year palliative care plan requested by Emmanuel Macron, since certain elements of this strategy could integrate the text: “We must look at what is covered by the law and what is not. , knowing that we don’t want to have a chatty law,” emphasizes the same government source.

According to consultation participants, there is ongoing debate on this fairly agreed-upon aspect of palliative care. However, the much more sensitive and controversial part of active assisted dying still relies on executive arbitration. The issue of a referendum on this end-of-life issue has returned to the debate, with National Assembly President Yael Braun-Piwe, in particular, saying she supports it.